Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Forget Lightbox!

If you want me to be able to see close-ups of your photos or documents, please turn Lightbox off. We geneabloggers sometimes ask our readers to enlarge posted images and look at details in documents to help us decipher words or look for something. Sometimes we post old photos and point out details or ask for help in identifying people. Lightbox is no help! It only enlarges once.

Look! Let me show you with two different images.

First, a census image:

Below is the census image as it appears in the blog post.

Now, without Lightbox, this is what I see when I click the image once:

Still without Lightbox, this is what I see when I click the image again.

Look at how large that is! Even though this is a screenshot, you can almost read it.It's much larger when we post a copy of the original image.

Finally, with Lightbox -- and it's still too small to read:

Second, with a group photograph:

As it appears in the blog post:

Without Lightbox, after I clicked once on the photo:

Without Lightbox, after I clicked the photo again:

With Lightbox, enlarged to its largest.It's not even as big as the first enlargement without lightbox!

Do you see what I mean? Lightbox doesn't let us enlarge enough to see real detail, especially if it's a document image or a group photograph. The only advantage to Lightbox (that I can see) is that we can click on the little thumbnail images at the bottom of the screen and see the images in sequence. Being able to click thumbnails (in my opinion) is not worth the trade-off of being able to see larger images.

To turn lightbox off, go to , then to and scroll 2/3 of the way down to where it says . There's a box that will say "yes" or "no." If it says "no," leave it. If it says "yes," click the down arrow and select "no." Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "save settings." Now we'll all be able to see your images.

For those of you who don't have blogs, this post probably won't mean much to you. But just so you know, I'm not using Lightbox which means you'll be able to see the images at their largest if you click once, and then again.

Thank you, ladies, for your comments. I'm glad I'm not alone in my view of Lightbox. I think it was an automatic "upgrade" when blogger added it. I'm grateful they gave us the option to opt out and go back to the old image viewer -- and I hope they let us continue to use it.

You say "To turn lightbox off, go to , then , scroll 2/3 of the way down " go to where? --sorry, I'm asking the same question as Kristin but I did not find the where to go. clchopkins@gmail.com---thanks

To Kristin and Cheri, I fixed the blog post to reflect exactly what needs to be done. No wonder you were confused. When I reread it I saw that I'd omitted some very important words. Kristin, I should have checked after you first contacted me.... So sorry. Thank you both for asking.

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About Me

Sometimes I want to jump back in time, into the lives of my ancestors. Not to stay, of course -- too many modern conveniences I'd rather not do without -- but to meet them and watch their interactions with each other. Since I can't do that, I spend time learning about them and the times in which they lived. I look forward to meeting them. I've been seriously searching for my ancestors for nearly 8 years. I plan to continue indefinitely.
If you think we might have ancestors in common or you'd like to contact me for any other reason, please email me at myancestorsandme @ gmail.com.